General

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India will launch on Tuesday ‘TRAI MySpeed’, a mobile app through which consumers can check the speed of internet connection on their smartphones.
The MySpeed mobile app, which can be downloaded from the Mobile Sewa app store of the government of India, will allow consumers to measure their data speed experience on 3G/4G networks and send the results to the Trai’s analytics portal, the regulator said in a statement.
“The application also sends coverage, data speed and network information along with device and location of the test to Trai servers,” the statement said. It added that the app will not send any personal information of the user.
The app launch comes in the wake of dissent among operators over the regulator’s data on call drops.
Telecom operators allege that the regulator had conducted selective drive tests to determine instances of call drops, while Trai has maintained its stance saying the area of the drive tests were selected in consultation with the operators.

New York: Technology giant Google on Thursday announced on Snapchat that the latest version of Android operating system Android N will now go by "Android Nougat".
"Introducing #AndroidNougat. Thank you, world, for all your sweet name ideas! #AndroidNReveal," the company wrote.
The announcement comes after the company asked for suggestions saying that users could submit suggestions for the name online. Nougat is the latest dessert-themed version of Android due out later this summer.
The release, initially announced in March and currently on its second (and mostly stable) beta, brings new features like an improved notification shade and split-screen multitasking to the mobile OS, while also improving on features like Doze that came with Marshmallow last year, technology website The Verge reported.
The release also has Daydream, Google's new VR platform, baked in, though it will only be supported by Daydream-ready handsets running the OS.

New Delhi: Tech giant Apple Inc’s next iPhone may not use the modem chips made by Qualcomm Inc but instead replace it with chips from the American multinational technology company Intel Corp.
Intel’s modem chips will be in iPhones used on AT&T Inc’s US network and some other versions of the smartphone for overseas markets, the Reuters quoted the bloomberg.
However, iPhones sold in China will use Qualcomm chips, and iPhones on Verizon Communications Inc’s network will also stick with Qualcomm. Qualcomm’s shares fell 1.7 percent with the news of this development while Intel shares rose up 0.3 percent.
Qualcomm Inc. is an American multinational semiconductor company that designs and markets wireless telecommunications products and service, while Intel on the other hand is one of the world’s largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue.

California: Google has just updated its YouTube app in the App Store, finally bringing Google Cardboard support to iOS users. This update gives iPhone users the ability to watch YouTube videos in VR mode through the Cardboard.
This ability has been there for Android users since November last year, and YouTube has finally introduced it for iPhone users as well. iPhone users will now be able to slip in their iPhones into the Cardboard slot and enjoy the 3D immersive experience.
YouTube first introduced 360-degree video support in March last year. With this, 360 video creators could upload their pre-recorded videos on YouTube, and viewers could pan and see other angles in 360-degree videos by moving their handset around.
On the desktop, users could watch by clicking the mouse on the video and dragging it to the desired angle. In April, YouTube went on to introduce support for live streaming of 360-degree videos as well.
This opens up new creative avenues for YouTube content creators, and even event organisers who can now live stream important concerts and programs in 360 degrees.
Bringing Google Cardboard support for iPhone users will further broaden its user base, and more viewers will now be able to consume 360-degree video on YouTube through virtual reality headsets for a more immersive experience.
This YouTube iOS update comes just a week after Google updated the video streaming app with bug fixes. The last update fixed bugs that prevented the loading of more videos on Home Page after scrolling till the bottom. It also brought the ability to automatically play the next recommended video on the app.

New Delhi: Calling up landline or mobile phone number from popular internet over-the-top services like as Skype, WhatsApp or Viber would now be a possibility.
As per The Times of India report, an inter-ministerial panel of the government gave clearance for inter-connect agreements between internet service providers and telecom operators on Monday.
It is expected that the agreement is not only likely to lead possibility of interconnect via the apps, the calls are not as expected to be as steep as made on mobile spectrum network.
The calls are expected to be billed as per the internet data used.

Nagpur: Idea Cellular, the largest and fastest growing telecom operators in India, announced the launch of its high speed 4G LTE services in its leadership circle Maharashtra & Goa.
The company launched its services in 28 towns, including the major towns of Nagpur and Ahmednagar, at a press conference held in the city on Thursday.
Within a short span of just 3 months, the company has delivered on its promise to launch its 4G LTE services in 10 circles within FY16, including the 4 telecom circles of South India – Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu & Chennai, 3 telecom circles of North – Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Haryana, followed by the launch in Orissa and North East.
Other than Nagpur and Ahmednagar, the company will roll out its world class 4G LTE services in major towns of Aurangabad, Solapur and Sangli-Miraj by end of this month. Idea Cellular is the leading mobile telecom service provider in Maharashtra and Goa with over 23 million satisfied consumers, providing unmatched coverage on 2G and 3G in more than 34,000 towns and villages across these two states. The company also plans to launch 3G services on 900Mhz in select areas in the circle.
Announcing the expansion of 4G services Deputy Managing Director of Idea Cellular Ambrish Jain said, “Beginning Dec 23, we have rapidly expanded our 4G LTE services in these 10 markets in a record time frame of just 3 months. We had revised our capex guidance for financial year 2016 from Rs.65 billion to Rs.75 billion mainly on account of an accelerated 4G capex and associated fiber rollout and are fully geared up now to grow our presence, strengthen our portfolio and make more people join the digital bandwagon.”
Presently available in over 300 towns, Idea aims to exit FY16 with its 4G LTE services covering over 550 towns in these 10 circles, and plans to extend the 4G footprint to over 750 towns by June 2016.
According to Chief Marketing Officer of Idea Cellular Sashi Shankar, “Idea customers with 4G devices in the towns across these 10 telecom circles can now start experiencing superfast speeds by simply upgrading their existing SIM cards to new 4G SIM cards. Idea has also partnered with leading handset manufacturers and e-commerce retailers for special offers on new 4G smartphones.”

Chennai: BSNL has launched its Wi-Fi internet service at the Broadway bus stand, KK Nagar RTO and Taluk offices, Vandalur Zoo and Nageshwara Rao park here.
The services have been available since March 2. Officials are planning to open more hotspots across south, east and north Chennai. “We have identified 20 locations in south Chennai and plan to cover them in one month,” said an official spokesperson of BSNL.
The firm had already set up a Wi-Fi hotspot at the shore temple in Mahabalipuram in October, last year. “We have received good reviews from customers there. We are also looking at tourist spots and bus stands, but will be setting up more depending on the number of users in the zone, user’s position, type of surroundings where they can get download speed up to 8 mbps,” the official added.
Customers will be able to use the Wi-Fi service free of charge for the first 15 minutes, and to continue services, they will have to purchase e-coupons through the access device for different durations, volumes and validity periods. The coupons can be used at any BSNL Wi-Fi zone in south and west India. The hotspots are being set up in partnership with M/s Quadgen Wireless.

New Delhi: WhatsApp messaging service has announced that it is dropping support for BlackBerry and Nokia platforms.
The company said in its blog post that when the service was launched in 2009, the popular platforms powering about 70 per cent of devices were by BlackBerry and Nokia, and mobile operating systems offering by Google, Apple and Microsoft, which today account for 99.5 per cent of sales, were less than 25 per cent at that time
In an attempt to stay updated and offer users more security, WhatsApp has decided that by the end of 2016, it will withdraw its support for WhatsApp Messenger on platforms including BlackBerry, BlackBerry 10, Nokia S40, Nokia Symbian S60, older Android platforms like Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, and Windows Phone 7.1.
It said these outdated operating systems do not offer the kind of capabilities required to expand WhatsApp's features in the future. Users who are on devices running the older platforms are advised to upgrade to devices running the modern platforms.

Sweden : Swedish automaker Volvo has started testing a smartphone app that would replace physical keys making it the first auto manufacturer to offer vehicles without keys.
"The app would feature bluetooth-enabled digital key technology and would do everything the physical key does for you," nydailynews.com reported.
"It would even offer drivers the ability to receive multiple digital keys on the app, which would allow access to different Volvo vehicles in various locations. So car sharing would become a breeze, making it very appealing to families with several drivers, or even co-workers," the report said.
The app may also be able to book and pay for a rental car anywhere across the globe, and deliver the digital key right to your phone.
"At Volvo we are not interested in technology for the sake of technology," Henrik Green, vice-president, product strategy & vehicle line management said in statement, adding "New technology has to make our customers' lives easier and save them time." The company hopes they can make this technology work by 2017.

Bengaluru : Flipkart announced on Friday that it has become the first Indian app to cross the 50 million installs landmarks on Google Play, adding that it achieved the milestone on the first week of February 2016.
The claim was verified by statistics presented on Google Play, which counts over 50 million installs of the Flipkart app. Other e-commerce players like Amazon India, Snapdeal and Paytm have have between 10-50 million downloads on Google Play at the time of filing.
Mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm said that it had crossed the 100 million user milestone in August 2015, while Hike Messenger achieved the same in January 2016. Hike Messenger is the only other Indian app with over 50 million downloads on Google Play, a Hike spokesperson told.
Flipkart said that it has a customer base of 50 million, with 80,000 registered sellers on its platform, retailing 30 million products in more than 70 categories. The company highlighted its leadership in the Indian markt by quoting reports from Web traffic and analytics firm SimilarWeb, which found that Flipkart and Myntra had 63 percent share of visits from the country. Flipkart also quoted a Morgan Stanley report on e-commerce in India, which said that it has a market share of 45 percent, more the next three players combined.